04/14/2017 DAB Transcript

Joshua
9:3-10:43 ~ Luke 16:19-17:10 ~ Psalm 83:1-18 ~ Proverbs 13:4

Today is the 14th day
of April. Welcome to the Daily Audio
Bible. Today is Good Friday, the day
that we commemorate and really sit with the sacrifice of Jesus on our
behalf. It’s a day of days. It’s a day that we use and observe as the
anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus, the closest, deepest, truest friend
we’ll ever have. So yes, we continue
with the rhythm of the scriptures and allow them to wash over us and speak to
us, but we also give ourselves to some contemplation today, some time to sit
with what sin leads to and that is only death, and what it cost to free us from
its bondage.

Prayer

So we thank you, Jesus. We thank you for such love that is beyond our
comprehension. That you would come for
us, that you would rescue us, that you would lay your life down on our behalf
and that you have given us an unspeakable freedom, one in which we participate
and one in which our actions show that we reject at times. So we sit with what this cost you to give to
us this unspeakable, overarching, all-encompassing gift of our freedom from sin
and all the repercussions of it. And we
thank you and we worship you. Come, come
into this time of reading from your word.
Come into this day as we contemplate what it means to the world and to
our own hearts. Come Jesus, we
pray. Amen.

Okay, this has been a big week in
the Bible because we crossed the Jordan and put our feet firmly in the promised
land, so we’ll pick up that story where we left off yesterday in the book of
Joshua, chapter 9, verse 3 through 10:43 and we’re reading from the
Contemporary English Version this week.

Commentary

Large swathes of land are
conquered today in the promised land.
The Gibeonites make this peace treaty with the Israelites under false
pretenses and then when they are attacked, they are attacked by the most
powerful kings of the region because the Gibeonites have allied themselves with
Israel. Israel comes to their defense, which
starts this large scale taking of this land because those kings were defeated,
and then Joshua led his people to go and take that particular land of the enemies
that had attacked them and were defeated.
What we should notice is that the children of Israel didn’t just get to
just march into the promised land and just settle in. They had to come into their promise and fight
for it.

How this applies to our lives is
similar. We get a promise, we get instructions,
we begin to move in until it becomes work, until it becomes something that has to
be contended for, until we have to fight for it and it is kind of at that point
that normally we will turn back in confusion and flee and say, “But you promised!”
kind of living under this false assumption that everything is supposed to be
easy. But it is that which we have to
fight for that actually has the most meaning and value to our lives and is held
as the most precious. When we have to
wait and contend and stay true and keep moving, these things, they instill a
character and a trust in us that we can get no other way.

So we’re watching the children of
Israel take the promised land and we have to understand that there is an enemy
of our heart and soul. There is a mortal
enemy of our children and our spouses. There
is evil set against us in this world and if we want to regain those places in
our hearts, we have to move forward with God on these things and we will prevail.

Prayer

On this day, this Good Friday, Jesus,
everything that we’re talking about is only provided by your hand and through your
sacrifice. So once again, all our hope
is in you. So often we will declare that
and it encourages us and it causes courage to well up within us, it en-courages
us, but it has only ever been true. Our
hope is in you because you are the only hope there is. So we start from gratitude because without you,
without you there is no hope. So we place
all of our hope in you, all of it, for everything. We sit with the fact that this cost you dearly. To give this hope to us cost you dearly. You love us so much that you left everything
to come and suffered tremendously on our behalf. So we accept with gratitude the gift of life that
you have offered us, the gift of a forever, an intimacy with you that is
never-ending, and we invite your Holy Spirit to make the cost and the victory
so evident in our lives today. You are
the Savior. You are the King. You are the Master. You are the Friend. You are the Lover. You are The Way for us. You are The Truth for us. You are The Life for us. And it is a wonder and it is a gift that is
beyond price, that is beyond cost, that is beyond economy. You have come to heal our broken hearts and
so we trust you. All of our hope is in you
and we invite you into these broken places because you were broken for us so that
we don’t have to live that way anymore. Thank
you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for your sacrifice
on our behalf. We love you and we worship
you. We worship you, Jesus. We give our hearts and we turn our hearts
toward you and give them to you as an act of worship. And we pray these things in your mighty and
victorious name. Amen.